“A very awkward point has arisen in the course of play on the links at Valhalla. Shakespeare and Bacon, who are staying there at the present time, got up very early one morning, when the other golfers were asleep, and went out for a match, without caddies. Going to the seventh hole, which is both a short one and a blind one--a thoroughly bad hole--the players were not aware that the greenkeeper was on the putting-green cutting a new hole. They played their tee shots and then went forward to the green, when they were surprised to find that the ball of each lay dead to a different hole. The greenkeeper had taken the flag and the metal lining out of the old hole, and had cut the slab of turf out of the new one, but had not at that time placed the metal cup or the flag into the new one, nor put the turf into the old one to fill it up. Bacon’s ball lay dead to the new hole, and Shakespeare’s to the old one. Each insisted on holing out at the hole to which his ball lay dead (the holes were many yards apart), and then the dispute began, each claiming the hole. Shakespeare said that as the new hole was not finished the old one was still in commission. ‘No,’ said Bacon, ‘not satisfied with cheating me out of my plays, you now try to take my holes. We have evidently been playing at new holes all the way out so far, and we must continue to do so. It is the new holes that count.’ ‘But,’ expostulated Shakespeare, ‘there are more old holes on the course at the present time than new ones. And this wretched greenkeeper will take two hours to finish his job. Must we dawdle behind him the whole way round? Let us ask the greenkeeper which hole was most like a hole at the time the balls came on to the green.’ The greenkeeper, however, was very ill-tempered, having been nearly hit by one of the balls, and he declined to answer the question. He said that people had no business to be playing on the course while holes were being cut, _no matter who they were_. Eventually the parties gave up their match and went back to the clubhouse, when they agreed to submit the point to some carefully constituted authority that would do its best to settle this most unfortunate and undignified quarrel between two eminently respectable persons of considerable standing.” The Author looked about him after this deliverance. “H’m!” muttered the Colonel, “not bad for you, Jim.” “It seems to me,” said the Reverend Septimus, “that Bacon certainly won if the new hole was full size, despite its not having had the tin put into it.” “Oh yes, it was full size,” interposed the Author. “The old hole,” pursued the Parson, “was ground under repair, but if the new hole was not full size Shakespeare won.” “Of course,” remarked the Author, “the tin is only mentioned to indicate the state of transition.”